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Rubber ducks? Hotel guest amenities get more bizarre

Hotel mini-bar items and amenities are looking stranger and stranger each day. It used to be that intimacy kits were as racy as hotels would get when stocking their rooms. Now they are one-upping each other

Hotel minibar items and other amenities offered guests are looking stranger and stranger each day.

It used to be that intimacy kits were as racy as hotels would get when stocking their rooms. Now they're one-upping each other with ever creative and buzz-worthy items.

Some examples:

-- The newly opened Graham hotel in Washington's Georgetown section has electronic cigarettes underneath the "fun things and necessities" section of each room's minibar.

-- The Hard Rock Hotel Chicago is offering "Nursing Mothers" amenities, including mini-fridges and freezers, microwaves, sterilization bags, and travel-sized cooler totes. The concierge staff have also been trained in nursing requirements including FedExing expressed milk.

-- Kimpton's Sky Hotel in Aspen has mini-oxygen tanks that Alan Cardenas, director of sales and marketing, says are popular with the "active, high altitude-loving guest who might just need to catch their breath at the end of the day." Kimpton's Hotel Triton in San Francisco has rubber ducks in its minibars that rotate seasonally, i.e., the World Series Duck.

Morgans Hotel Group properties have "shop boxes," with items such as a new line of underwear. Part of the proceeds from the underwear go to the Seven Bar Foundation, a non-profit organization for women.(Photo: Morgans Hotel Group)

-- Many Morgans Hotel Group properties have "shop boxes," with items such as a new line of funky underwear. The underwear costs $20, but $1 goes to the Seven Bar Foundation, a non-profit organization that raises money for loans to female entrepreneurs. There's also an emergency kit for women with double-sided tape to prevent wardrobe malfunctions.

The items aren't cheap. The Graham's electronic cigarettes, for instance, will run you $18. The Nursing Mothers amenity kit costs $30, though all proceeds go to a local children's hospital.

Kim Walker, senior vice president for marketing and creative director of Morgans Hotel Group, says the company's hotels carefully curate their mini-bars and room amenities because they think "surprising" their guests is important.